Links from the last week

The title of this essay severely undersells what is a great long-read on observations of academia by a self-described “member of the liberal elite”. Any excerpt I did would undersell it as well, highly-recommended anyone interested in our universities take the time to read it.

Not sure how many people realize that two weeks ago *almost* saw what would have been the worst airline disaster in US history, when an Air Canada flight nearly landed on a taxiway with four other jets lined up waiting for takeoff, only finally aborting when told to by ATC. Why? It was nighttime. The pilot was supposed to land on runway 28R. Runway 28L was out of service and so had its approach lights off, which may have made 28R look like 28L to the pilot (the left-most runway), which made that long strip to its right (the taxiway) look like 28R. The flashing lights of the planes lined up on the taxiway may have looked like the strobe lights of a runway – early on in the approach the pilot asked ATC about what appeared to him to be other aircraft on the runway but was told it was clear. All very logical, frighteningly so.

Another long essay on how, and perhaps why, the “refugee crime” of Europe is not uniformly distributed, but actually especially significant among refugees from Afghanistan (who now account for half of all sexual assaults in Austria, for example).

So again: what’s going on? Why is this happening? And why the Afghans? A few competing theories are in circulation.

Interesting read via Rod Dreher. I found most discouraging her note that every time she opens her social media she finds herself reading:

yet another treatise on how white supremacy must be eliminated and how white people need to repent of their whiteness. A friend recently said that it is like the new prayer of Jabez.

Her bigger point is to suggest that the language and categories of social justice activism naturally create an us versus them mindset, and encourage people to view others suspiciously based on demographically determined guilt. Which is poison to real unity in the Church.